Graham Charlton

How is ecommerce likely to evolve? Five key trends

Ecommerce is an ever-changing feast and predicting which trends will hold is an imperfect science, but we're going to have a go anyway.

Here, in extracts from our Building an Ecommerce Team: Best Practice Guide, we pick out the themes we consider the most important in the context of their impact on ecommerce teams.

by Graham Charlton 17 June 2013 10:10am 3 comments

Google: avoid 'download app' pop-ups or lose mobile search rankings

Google's Webmaster Central blog today announced changes in the way it ranks smartphone search results, with a focus on eliminating flaws which affect the user experience.

One of the usability issues highlghted is those pesky interstitials which prompt visitors to download mobile apps, while other issues include faulty redirects and unplayable videos.

This seems to be a positive move from Google, and one which should help to eliminate the usability problems which detract from mobile browsing.

Here are some of the issues to avoid...

by Graham Charlton 12 June 2013 11:00am 7 comments

Primark uses ASOS to test the ecommerce waters

A month ago, I wrote a post questioniong whether Primark was mad to ignore ecommerce, after it had said it had no plans to sell online.

Strangely, for a post and discussion on an internet marketing blog, the general consensus was that Primark's offline only strategy was a good idea for such a low margin retailer.

Yesterday however, Primark started selling a limited range of clothes via ASOS. So is this a good idea?

by Graham Charlton 04 June 2013 11:52am 8 comments

10 useful Google Analytics custom dashboards

A bit of customisation always helps if you want to extract maximum value from Google Analytics.

Custom reports are a great way to do this, but custom dashboards also play a useful role, allowing you to view key metrics at a glance and tailor the view to your own needs.

Here I've rounded up 10 custom GA dashboards from various sources.

Just click on the link under the screenshots to automatically add these to your Google Analytics profile...

by Graham Charlton 30 May 2013 11:11am 16 comments

How Appliances Online went from 2,500 to 1m Facebook fans in just two years

Online electrical retailer Appliances Online (now rebranded as AO) has seen impressive growth on its Facebook page, recently hitting the milestone of 1m likes.

According to AO, it is also making Facebook sell, something not all retailers have managed to do.

It has seen a 60% in branded search traffic, which has led to a 58% uplift in sales driven by brand terms.

To find out the secrets behind this growth, I've been asking AO Social Media Manager Yossi Erdman...

by Graham Charlton 21 May 2013 10:07am 12 comments

How should publishers respond to link removal requests?

Thanks again to Panda, Penguin etc, it seems many webmasters are panicking about links they have obtained in the past, or have been pulled up by Google as a result of over-zealous link building.

As a result, we are receiving many more link removal requests than we ever used to, ten or so in the past couple of months.

To be frank, these requests are annoying, and I'm also a little put out that they see this blog as a risk to them. Chris Lake touched upon this recently and, as he says, 'a lot of folks seem to have a bad case of The Fear'.

I thought it was worth exploring this issue in more detail, so I've asked a few SEO experts for their views...

by Graham Charlton 16 May 2013 10:34am 10 comments

Why does mobile out-perform desktop on this ecommerce site?

I had an interesting email from an ecommerce site owner in Texas over the weekend, wondering why mobile outperforms desktop on his site for conversion rates.

The site in question is discgolfstation.com, and owner Clint Henderson tells me that mobile conversion rates are twice that of desktop, which is obviously unusual.

While the mobile site isn't bad at all, it seems the problem is down to poor desktop performance.

Here, I'll suggest some possible reasons, but it would be great to see what suggestions you have for improvements as well...

by Graham Charlton 15 May 2013 11:26am 5 comments

70+ epic ecommerce best practice tips, stats, blog posts and more

After this post rounding up some of our case studies, articles and reports on social media, I thought I'd steal Andrew Warren Payne's idea and do the same for ecommerce.

We have written a lot on ecommerce since the blog launched, but here are 70 or so of the our best practice tips, interviews with ecommerce folk, stats, and reports from the past year or so.

Hope you find this useful...

by Graham Charlton 10 May 2013 10:45am 6 comments

Is guest blogging becoming risky?

After Penguin hit a lot of sites hard last year, it seems many SEOs have turned to guest blogging for alternative methods of link-building.

I see this in the volume of requests I get for guest posts on this blog, and Google presumably sees this in the volume of new links it is seeing from guest blogging.

It seems that Google is now taking a serious interest in guest blogging, so what are the risks for the bloggers and the sites hosting guest articles?

I've been asking some SEO experts for their views on the potential risks and how to avoid them...

by Graham Charlton 13 May 2013 11:23am 36 comments

15 tips for getting the best out of your guest bloggers

Post Panda and Penguin, guest blogging has become a more popular tactic for link-building, and I see the evidence of this in my inbox every day.

We value the contribution of guest bloggers on this blog as they have been responsible for some of our best content, but it's important to manage guest writers well for the benefit of both parties.

Here are 15 tips to help you to make the most of guest posts...

by Graham Charlton 09 May 2013 13:05pm 4 comments